


Amethystrium

by blessende



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Artistic License, Creative License, F/M, Loss of Limbs, Odium's shadows, Post-Oathbringer, Soulcasting, Szeth-son-Neturo, Ten Essences, The Unmade, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-18 17:52:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16999791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessende/pseuds/blessende
Summary: “Do you really wish for me to take him?” she addressed her uncle though her eyes never wavered from Szeth. Purple eyes, he found himself thinking. “This man whose sword has a better personality than him?”





	1. Where Truth and Truthless Meet

 

 

 

 

Chapter-1- Where Truth and Truthless Meet

 

 

 

Szeth-son-Neturo sat in the eastern tower of Urithiru, his legs crossed, his wide Shin eyes overlooking the fields where the ardents tried to actively cultivate the plains. He found their attempts laudable, this exercise to make the aridness of Urithiru bear some food to their starving armies. More than just soulcast lavi and grain. Their labors hadn’t borne fruit yet, perhaps an exercise in futility; Szeth didn’t know whether he should feel pity for these foreigners and their pained trials at cultivation for while he’d sworn to follow Dalinar Kholin, he didn’t feel the same allegiance towards Dalinar’s people— the Alethi. Then again, it was rare for Szeth to feel anything at all and so he excused his emotions and their lack thereof.

His sword hummed on his back, growing restless from its days long slumber.

_Hey. Hey! Why do we keep sitting around all day? Let’s go rally up some bad guys and fight evil! That’s what I’m good at, remember?_

“This is Urithiru, sword-nimi,” Szeth spoke to it, his voice calm. “Home of our new master. You won’t find evil here.”

The sword grumbled.

_That’s what you always say. Day in and day out. But I’m hungry. You don’t feed me enough. The others would take me out all the time, you know. You could do the same. Draw me out, take me from this crummy sheath and I will lend you all my power. Storms, I’m getting rusty in here. Take me out. C'mon._

Szeth slid it from his strap and studied the blade, still sheathed in cask. 

“Like the last time when you tried to eat me, sword-nimi?"

The sword of darkness protested.

_No, no. I had a bite. A measly bite. Just a nip, really._

Szeth said nothing, barely listening. He looked to the plains again, growing thoughtful.

_Say, what’s up with the symmetricity in this new place? These guys like mirrors or what? Urithiru, Shalash, Kelek—_

“The Vorin religion sees a sliver of the Almighty in symmetricity, sword-nimi.”

_Uh huh. You know what I see? A whole lot of bothob and poop. You smell any? Yeah, definitely poop here. Considering how no one knows what the plumbing in this place does, I’m sure there’s a lot of poop lying somewhere ‘ere.  See, how’s that for symmetricity?_

The door jarred open and Teft, Stormblessed’s second, emerged out. The old grey soldier jabbed a thumb inside. 

“Hey Assassin in White. They are asking for you.”

Szeth picked up his sword and walked in, ignoring the look Teft sent him. They didn’t like him, he knew and he understood. After the sins he'd committed, what else did he expect? There was an argument unfolding inside the council room. If there was one thing he’d learned from his years in Alethkar, there was always an argument unfolding somewhere in this country of moving grass. In taverns, in courts, in council rooms and bedrooms of brightlords and brightnesses. The Alethi were a warring people, who loved conflict and seemed to breathe and revel in it. Perhaps the most argumentative of the lot was this woman, the newly coronated queen of the Alethi kingdom. Her tongue like thunderclast, her mind a swarm of wasps. The Heretic Queen, the ardents whispered under their breath. Intuitive, sharp and brutal. Even the sword seemed taken by her presence.

“It’s true I will want the scribes for my visit to Azir. The Azish are a diplomatic people, and I expect our meetings to run pages, if not volumes. But I do not need _protection_ , Uncle. Least of all from the man who murdered my father."

Szeth paused in the doorway, his glance shifting to the woman who’d spoken. The council room fell silent and all eyes turned to him, watching Szeth warily, murmurs following in agreement.

A man hovering over the table with food, who‘d been eyeing the buffet with interest, snorted. Sebariel, Szeth remembered. One of the highprinces.

“For once, I agree with you, Queen Jasnah. After all, is there _anyone_ this man has not tried to kill yet? A bit too notorious to be given the mantle of bodyguard. If it were upto me—”

A woman elbowed Sebariel and pointed his attention to Szeth. The brightlord didn’t seem perturbed by his presence nor did he apologize. Nor did Szeth for that matter.

“Jasnah,” Dalinar sighed as he ran a hand over the map of the kingdom, tracing valleys and contours. “This isn’t the time to look at the past. We have all made mistakes, and we repent for them. So has he. He’s taken new oaths, new ideals. He is just like you now. A full Knight Radiant.”

Jasnah smiled. It was a harsh smile.

“He sullies our ideals, Uncle. He will never be one of us. You know it.”

Dalinar looked worn for wear.

“Storms, Jasnah. I’ve lost your brother. Alethkar will not lose another regent while I'm alive nor I another Kholin blood.”

Jasnah turned from him to Szeth, looking at him for the first time. The crown glinted on her onyx hair, the shadow of her authority growing tenfold. Her gaze pierced him, rouge lips pressed in a thin line.

“Do you really wish for me to take _him_?” she addressed her uncle though her eyes never wavered from Szeth. Purple eyes, he found himself thinking. Violet like the wines that flowed deep into eager mouths. There was no mistaking the callous edge in her tone. "This man whose sword has a better personality than him?”

Szeth felt a chortle of laughter from his back. The sword hummed pleasantly as it delivered its verdict.

 _I like her. I_ really _like her._

 

* * *

 


	2. Break the Sky

 

 

Chapter-2- Break the Sky

 

 

 

Szeth lashed himself into the sky. High. As high as he could go. To the place where no windrunners went. To the place where no stonewalker could breathe. His loose clothes rippled as he elevated high above Urithiru in a flash of white lightning, rising above hills, mountains, beyond the sights of humans, spren, voidbringers, and judgement. _Especially_ judgement. He felt the air swirl through his fists, felt the tension locking in his joints, the compression and decompression of his lungs, and he kept rising until everything below was insignificant.

Hadn’t it always been insignificant?

People and their wars. Men and their gods. Violet eyes and their loathing.

_Hey, hey, you are brooding again. As your personal morality coach, I gotta say your personality points are dipping. And by dipping, I mean hitting sub zero. Take my advice, whip me out and you’ll be a charmer of crowds again. Well, whoever’s left of ‘em. I’m not saying you will get your hair back. But it’s worth a try, I say._

“I’m not brooding, sword-nimi.”

_And I’m not an ancient sword that smites evil in its face and bleeds darkness. I know you like to pretend you are an empty sack of emotions, but you gotta admit the woman was brutal to you._

Szeth set his jaw, his eyes glowing a glimmer with stormlight.

_So, you killed her father. Pursued him like the blood thirsty axehound you are, felled the man from a high balcony before her very own eyes, and broke his sternum from the fall. So, what? There are worse ways to die, right? By me, for example. I’d be a pretty terrible way to die. Badass pretty, but terrrrrrrrrrrrible, I reckon._

Szeth pressed a hand to the hilt, and Nightblood’s speech extoling its own greatness subdued to a whisper. No, he needed quiet here.

Quiet brought its own share of haunting. Voices stirred from the void, calling to him, torturous laments from the dead, and he drank in some stormlight to quell those voices. He must clear his mind. Amp his focus. But then he heard something else reach out to him. He looked below his feet and made out the hill of Urithiru, its towers of human accomplishment and even high up here, he heard the call from below.

Szeth lashed himself down to the world of Dalinar Kholin, down to the ideals of his new leader.

He dropped, hurtling through tropos, stratos, mists of Roshar, its barren skies until he found the ground hurtling to meet him.

_H-Hey. Y-You aren’t going to pull back a little?_

Szeth didn’t.

In a way, he never did.

He landed in the middle of Urithiru on one knee, fluttering clothes, cracking bone from the force of impact, shattering stone like a hammer dropped from the heights of Tranquiline Halls, and it was all such a delicious mix of pain and sound after having spent years in the service of one insignificant little stone. His skin glowed softly as his bones, sinews knitted themselves again, reforming him. He winced mildly and rose to his feet. He was on the ground again, and how he hated it.

He found Dalinar Kholin sitting on a boulder, the oathgates tall and proud behind him, as proud as the man dressed proper in his blue uniform. Dalinar looked at the spot Szeth had landed, the webbed cracking of rock, and his gaze traveled to Szeth in a rare flash of concern and… revulsion?

He picked himself up from the boulder and walked over to Szeth. Dalinar lifted an arm and after a dire moment of speculation where the veined hand just hung in mid-air, he dropped it, placing it gingerly on Szeth’s shoulder.

“Take it from a man who tried to self-destruct once,” Dalinar said, nodding to himself. “— the high isn’t worth the fall, son. It _never_ is.”

He grew quiet and looked past Szeth’s shoulder, lost to some phantom memory of his own.

“The world doesn’t trust you. Perhaps they never will. But _I_ want to. Do you understand?”

Szeth watched him in revered silence before Dalinar resumed, his words lofty as his values.

“I’ve seen you break empires. I’ve seen you kill, maim and hurt. Now, I ask you to protect," his eyes met Szeth, fastidious and resolve burned in them. "You asked me for a personal quest, Skybreaker? I won’t send you to Shinovar. You will go with Jasnah, and you will protect the Queen at all cost.”

Dalinar squeezed the Shin's shoulder before relinquishing his hold, fingers slipping away.

Szeth regarded him in surprise and spoke up.

“Forgive me for my impudence, Master Dalinar. But she— your niece— doesn’t need me. I have seen her crumble men to shards with a snap of her fingers.”

Dalinar nodded.

“I know, son. It’s from herself that she needs protecting."

 

 

* * *

 


	3. Fallacies of Men

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter-3- Fallacies of Men 

 

 

 

Diplomacy did not faze Jasnah Kholin. She took to the crown like a babe to a mother’s tit. She listened to reports on spanreeds, poured over briefings of the Everstorm’s path through Roshar, the destruction and havoc it caused, she discussed the finer details of attack and defense with her uncle, learning, acclimatizing; she was deft in carefully wording her replies to Alethkar’s allies, promising aid, but not without ransom, and chalking out promises from allies in exchange for tactical advantages; despite her busy overtures, she made time to go over translations of the dawnchant and even paid attention to the discoveries her mother’s swarm of devoted scholars brought daily from the gem drawers. Jasnah spent her time productively, more productive than a certain ward of hers. A ward who’d promised to pursue her scholarship in all seriousness but was already tending towards her old habits, being distracted by anything shiny, colorful and sparkling.

Marriage did not dull one Shallan Davar. It only seemed to make her wiles grow.

Jasnah sat at her desk under the light of a diamond broam, reading Shallan’s salvaged copy of Hessi’s Mythica. She made notes as she read until a sigh broke through the air, and when she looked to Shallan, she found her ward looking out the window in longing. Jasnah’s doubts came to fruition when the redhead rose and began picking up her notes and her drawings in haste.

Jasnah stopped her.

“Where do you think you’re going, Shallan? I’m still waiting for a well-written treatise on the effects and indications of soulcasting gas. Or did you forget it, o-truant-ward-of-mine?”

Shallan grimaced. Especially at the truant part.

“Fresh…air?” the redhead suggested meekly before her shoulders dropped, caving under the scrutiny of Jasnah's narrow eyes. “I’ve been cooped up here for two days, Jasnah,” Shallan protested. “Two days! And I know it was foolish of me to suggest resuming my studies after all the chances you gave me, but I didn’t mean to start right away, Brightness. I have spent so little time with my brothers ever since they got here. And I’ve spent even _less_ with Adolin which ought to be a crime considering the beautiful smile he’s got, and how I haven’t sketched him or his beautiful smile in _ages_!”

Jasnah resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“Appeal to pity,” she simply said. “Your premises are correct but irrelevant to your conclusion. Try again.”

The redhead pouted.

“Alas, I’m a newly-wed and miss my husband?”

“Appeal to emotion,” Jasnah noted, leaning back into her chair, “Are we going to run through all the fallacies of argument? Besides, it was entirely your decision to beholden yourself to a man.”

Shallan sighed and knowing she was well on the verge of losing this debate, she returned to her text on soulcasting, looking defeated. Concentration did not come easy to one Shallan Davar. Before long, she sneaked out a gem and twirled it between her fingers, throwing Jasnah furtive looks over a shoulder.

Jasnah gave a weary sigh.

“Shallan. I know what you’re thinking, so  _don’t.”_

Thankfully, the redhead dropped the idea of weaving an illusion to fool her. After a long-drawn silence, the ward seemed to finally reach her wit's end. She closed the tome on soulcasting and folded her hands under her chin, growing thoughtful.

“Say, Jasnah. How do you do it?”

Jasnah turned to meet the redhead’s gaze and raised a shapely brow.

Shallan lifted a hand and gestured between them.

“This, precisely!” she said. “How do you stay rational all the time? Do you lock away your emotions, your passions when you get up in the morning? Shove them under the bed or something? Do you ever let... _loose?”_

Jasnah's gaze flickered between her ward and the book. She didn't oblige Shallan with an answer, choosing to ignore the question.

The redhead watched her long, waiting. Shallan tucked her hair behind an ear, her gaze shifting in awkwardness.

“I never had the courage to ask this before, but I guess since the world’s ending and all, it doesn't really matter,” Shallan took a deep breath in. “Jasnah, have you ever— I mean, you _must_ have, right? Like taken a fancy to someone, _anyone_ … " she grimaced. "What I mean to say is-- By Almighty, you are beautiful, sophisticated, confident, a Kholin and now a Queen. Surely, there must have been…”

Shallan left the words unsaid, but they remained hanging in air like dark clouds from a weeping that never let. Jasnah paused over her parchment and looked on as the nib of her instrument blotted the paper. She sighed softly and stacking her papers into a neat pile, hazarded a glance at her ward.

“Appeal to authority. Very subtly done, Shallan. I _almost_ didn’t notice it.”

Shallan broke into a cheeky grin.

“You found me out. Since I’ve struck out thrice, you will _have_ to send me away now. You couldn’t possibly keep me around after committing such deplorable blunders in rhetoric.”

Jasnah inhaled deep and returned to her text.

“You are excused, Shallan,” she relented, without looking up. “Say hello to cousin Adolin for me.”

Shallan collected her things in a hurry to leave. The spring in her steps ought to have been offensive. Despite her eagerness to escape, Shallan paused at her door.

“You know, Jasnah… men are not so bad. Some of them are actually pretty sweet.”

Oh, _bother._

“Thank you for your insightful advice, Davar. I'm a changed woman. I've seen the light at the end of the tunnel and will mend my ways. Now, go.”

Shallan smiled as she slipped out, curtains falling into place behind her.

Jasnah shook her head and buried herself in words again. She felt movement, her spren climbing and creeping up to her shoulder. He stood as an inky blackness, viscous like oil, merging into the tangles of her hair.

“Doesn’t know of Amaram, does she... this child,” Ivory said.

Jasnah didn't answer him.

* * *

 


	4. Violets

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter-4- Violets

 

 

 

Amaram Meridas, Highmarshal of Sadeas, was an ambitious man who approached most things in life the way he handled a sword. Cut, cut until the very stone breaks. In his younger years, he’d relished in challenges, in seeking stone after stone to carve and what better one to carve and proclaim his than Jasnah Kholin, the King’s daughter known as much for her intelligence and acumen as for her aloofness and curt manners.

She’d been visiting the archives at Kharbranth, sitting in an alcove and staying buried in books when the cushion across her shifted and the tall figure of Amaram got himself seated in its place. Tan eyes, green silk tied around his neck and the proud Sadeas glyph on his sleeve. Her maids giggled over him, captivated by his smoldering aura and his chiseled square face. Jasnah didn't share their enthusiasm and had little interest in the geometries of anatomy.

She peered at him over the pages of her book, giving him a cursory look, and then went back to reading. Her lack of a reaction didn’t deter him. Amaram was anything if not persistent.

“Did you receive my gift, Brightness?” he began amicably enough.

She didn't answer and when it didn't seem like he was leaving, she huffed. 

“You are blocking the light, Meridas,” Jasnah simply answered.

Amaram merely smiled and moved from the light, using the opportunity to squeeze into a seat beside her. He didn’t notice her turning stiff. 

He leaned over the table, chin poised in his hand, eyes looking over her with interest.

“I take it you didn’t like my gift. My apologies if you found it lacking, Brightness.”

Jasnah let slip a smile.

“Your gifts are like you, Meridas. Lacking a point as always.”

His jaw set at this revelation. 

“Why, brightness,” he said thickly. “I thought my point was as clear as day. Perhaps a demonstration would aid your understanding.”

As if to illustrate, he reached over to place an index finger over the glove of her safehand. She watched in surprise (and rising ire) as he began tracing a line over her sheathed knuckles. Her breath caught at his temerity, at his daring. Jasnah wasn’t flustered, chilled, yes, but she wasn’t the sort to get flustered and moony over him like some scullery maid.

“Meridas,” she hissed in contempt. “I trust you need a _hand_ to hold a sword. Pray, don’t gamble with your faculties, limited as they are.”

Her warning had little effect on the soldier. He smiled, clearly enjoying himself.

“Your father thinks we are a good match,” he said and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I will take good care of you, Jasnah, I _promise._  Our alliance will herald a new future for you. And for me.”

Jasnah tried to draw her hand back, but he curled his fingers around hers, almost crushing them in a vice like grip. She shot him a scathing look. “My father thinks Sadeas, your lord, is harmless so I’m inclined to think your point is moot, Meridas.”

He looked aggravated with her now. Amaram’s lips drew into a line, and he pulled back, releasing her. He watched her for a long moment as if expecting to see her thaw. When she didn’t, he sighed and rummaged through his pockets until his hand finally emerged with a box. He flicked it open and slid it over the table. Inside the box was an amethyst brooch that shone brilliant.

“Rest assured, I will be thinking of you, Jasnah,” he told her, giving her a courteous bow. “I hope you’ll do the same for me.”

 

 

 

 

She did.

She did think about Amaram Meridas a whole lot. But not for the reasons he had hoped for.

Jasnah stood at the port of Thaylenah City, beyond the walls, close to the coast, surrounded here by her Queen’s guard of two men from Bridge Four. Two, she wondered to herself. Just two? Her compatriot, Queen Fen of Thaylenah, cleared her throat and addressed the gathering.

“I take this opportunity to thank you again, Jasnah, for the services you’ve provided this city. If you hadn’t sealed that breach, I’m afraid many of us wouldn't have lived to see this day.”

Jasnah acknowledged her with a smile.

“How goes rebuilding?” she asked.

“Slow,” Fen answered. “Excruciatingly slow.” The Thaylenah regent paused and looked at the barren stone field around them. “Tell me, Jasnah. What are you searching for?”

Jasnah looked towards the coast.

“Answers.”

“Answers?” echoed Fen, frowning.

“Yes,” she nodded.

Her gaze drew to the place where the red mist had threatened to consume her uncle, and she traced the path back to the remains at her feet. It was unrecognizable now. She stood over a corpse weathered by time and storms. The skull lay broken and hollow, jaw hanging around a lax mouth, lips themselves stretched to improbability and crusted over with violet stones.

So violet.

Just like the gem he’d given her.

 _Why,_  she wanted to ask his ghost. _Wh_ _at possessed you, Amaram?_

She noted movement and recognized a figure perched over the ruins of a watch tower, Szeth's legs were folded under him, his clothes unimaginative and blank as their owner. The Shin man was rather unremarkable for a Radiant (and even more for an assassin.) And suddenly, it occurred to Jasnah Kholin why exactly her retinue of guards had been reduced to a single figure. 

 

 

* * *

 


	5. Price of an Arm

 

Chapter-5- Price of an Arm

 

 

Szeth knew the guards stationed outside the queen’s door. Skar and Drehy. He knew them by name, by the tattoos on their foreheads and the camaraderie with which they clapped each other’s shoulder. He admired the men’s diligence, their earnestness to do right. The soldiers were an extension of Kaladin Stormblessed, the man who’d fought Szeth tooth and skin above the tumultuous winds of the Everstorm, the man who’d unwittingly unraveled the truth behind all the lies. That yes, the Radiants were returning, and that Szeth had never actually been truthless. While he’d lain broken and shattered in the aftermath of that battle against the windrunner, Szeth felt the truth settle heavy on him. The weight of the sins he'd committed. Unlike Szeth, there was no gray in Kaladin Stormblessed; Kaladin’s light was an unrelenting beacon to his squires, commanding their respect and collective awe. Truth be told, the skywalkers had no such bond to inspire them, their leaders apathetic. Nin was… _Nin_.

When a queen called, you were meant to go. Szeth answered the summons by arriving early. The guards went stiff at his approach. While he knew Skar and Drehy well, they knew him just by his title and little else. ‘Assassin in White’, they talked of him in muffled whispers. ‘He’s here,’ Drehy said under his breath, nudging Skar with an elbow.

Their visit to Thayleneh city was two days running. Jasnah’s agenda was turning out to be as elusive as her. She’d visited refugee camps with the Thaylen rulers, spent mornings talking to survivors, then spent the evenings at the treasury vault, trying to salvage records; she tended to finish her days quietly at the beach, introspecting at the scenes of their last battle, where dust still smelled faintly of the sea, and corpses lay fresh in the imagination of weak minds. The Thaylens did not bar her entry, not even to their most holy places. Here Jasnah was regaled as a hero.

The summons to meet her had come through Skar who’d kept his distance as he relayed the message.

“Brightness wants to see you,” the wiry boy told him, his hand closed guardedly around the hilt of his short sword.

Szeth nodded, agreeing to come.

Nightblood was a keen listener these days. Especially where Jasnah was concerned.  It stirred to wakefulness.

 _Oh, now you’ve done it,_ his sword murmured sleepily. _Gone and put your hand into the chasmfiend’s mouth. Say,_ it said to him. _While you are in there, can you ask her to_ hold _me? Like really hold me. For science, y’know. I reckon she’d be good. Yes, yes,_ the sword hissed at the prospect, _she would be very good at vanquishing evil._

No, Szeth had no intention of handing over Nightblood to anyone, not after he’d learned what it could do. 

At the Queen’s door, Drehy made a gesture at the sight of him. A sign to ward off evil. Szeth wasn’t offended, and Skar watched him uncertainly before opening the doors and letting Szeth through the grand entryway.

Once inside, Szeth-son-Neturo found himself in a painted square room brightly lit by diamonds suspended in lanterns, their craftsmanship thoroughly Thaylen. The room was so bright and luminescent that there were no shadows to merge with. There was just one window by the writing desk. Should he be worried? No, he wasn’t truthless anymore. He needn’t fear. He could stand in his person and answer her summons. He deferred to her authority, keeping to the spot before the door amidst the scratching sounds of quill on paper, her safe hand lost in the oversized sleeve folded in her lap. Jasnah Kholin wasn’t alone here. The scribe Teshav was standing beside the queen, holding an armful of books, and she gawked at Szeth in mild horror.

He wondered if he should announce his presence, but he didn’t know what to call himself or even her. To call her ‘Jasnah’ was overtly familiar. He wasn’t a relative or a ward. Or even a friend.

 _Does she have friends? Can we be friends?_ his sword murmured.

“I don’t think so, sword-nimi.”

And nor was Szeth an Alethi to address her as ‘Brightness’.

A long moment passed before she ceased writing and looked up at him.

“Teshav, you may leave,” she said to her scribe. The woman didn’t need to be told twice. Teshav grabbed the stack of papers and made an arc around Szeth as she left, skittering for the exit.

Behind him, the doors shut again with an ominous sound like the last nail to a coffin.

“You’re here,” Jasnah observed as she rose, her robe of gold undulating with movement over her havah. Jasnah, the Queen of Alethkar, dressed differently from Jasnah, the Knight Radiant. There was more propriety, more exposition in the details, certainly more expensive threads. She was a woman who was well prepared for any circumstance. Give her a sword or a crown and she’d know how to use both. How many people could boast of such a gift? _You_ , she’d said to him. Just as well. Her choice made it easy for both of them.

When Szeth spoke, his voice was low and scratchy from lack of use.

“You asked for me?”

Jasnah stood by that one window, looking out. Drawn to her full height, the Alethi crown sat subtle on her hair. She returned a careful nod.

“My reasons are simple. I was going to ask you to leave. _Politely_.” Her eyes flickered his way— the briefest of glances— before resuming. “My work with the coalition requires delicacy, and I don’t wish to send mixed signals by keeping a mercenary in my entourage." Somewhere outside, a horn bellowed. Jasnah walked back to her desk, dragging the fingers of her freehand over the surface. "I understand my uncle’s good intentions, but he is inadept at understanding the finer details of diplomacy and has been known to exercise oversight on more than one occasion. Your presence is rather… inconvenient.”

She turned to face him.

“Do you understand what I'm saying?”

Szeth found it increasingly difficult to meet her gaze. He looked away and measured out the silence that followed. He weighed his words before speaking them, drawing them out by force.

“My fourth ideal... is a personal quest in Shinovar. Before I can set out to cleanse the land of my fathers and their forefathers, Dalinar bid me to protect you,” he paused. “I will go where you go.”

There was another of those silences, pregnant with meaning. He heard a sharp intake of breath. It wasn’t the answer she’d hoped for and turned bridled at his response.

“You will go where I go?” she echoed, her words ringing out their distaste. “Haven’t you tired of masters yet?” Jasnah posed the question to him. "Uncle told me of Taravangian’s betrayal and what he made you do. What the parshendi made you do. You were controlled by people and enemies who were craftier and more cunning than you are. Still, you insist on taking others as your master. Have you learned nothing yet?”

Szeth detected the razor edge in her voice. He stayed quiet and then raised his head to look at her.

“I’m no longer truthless,” he vowed quietly. “I’ve chosen Dalinar Kholin as my compass for justice, and I will do what he says.”

His resolve was unbreakable. Then again, so was she.

Jasnah regarded him, her mouth growing tight. 

“Does your highspren have a name?”

Szeth started, wondering at the change in subject.

“No, not yet,” he said with a frown.

Jasnah nodded as she peered over a shoulder and looked out the window again. Her shoulders remained tautly drawn. 

“They have been written to have conflicting judgements. Highspren. Much like... you,” she gave a careful, deliberate pause here and faced him. “You insist on following me? You won’t change your mind?”

Szeth shook his head.

There was a tense silence before he caught it. The flare in her eyes. Like the glint of a dagger on sharpening stone.

“I asked you politely once. And now I must ask in other ways.”

He then heard it-- the intake of breath that was as familiar to him as his own. The room went dark suddenly. Lights from the diamond lanterns   extinguished, rendering the gemstones inside dun, until Szeth realized belatedly that a figure glowed in the middle of the study. She’d absorbed them, each and every one of the gems. In her hand, she carried a glittering garnet.

Szeth tried to reach for the ones on his own person, but ceased when Jasnah stepped forward, her eyes ablaze with stormlight, her glowing face framed by dark hair that drew shadows on her forehead. 

“I’m afraid our introductions have been lacking,” she said. “Do you know what I am, skybreaker?”

His sword sensed the change in the air, turning excited at the crack of energy around them.

_Ah, is she going to perform tricks for us? Is she? I hope she will. I’m borrrrrrrrred and won’t mind a show. Others who have held me used to have some peculiar  interests. They paid a good deal of gems to see women sheath and unsheathe their left hands. All that time spent on wenches when we could have been out there, gutting evil—_

Szeth didn’t hear the rest as Jasnah closed the distance between them. She stood before him, a glowing figure, and reached out to touch his elbow. Her skin radiated light and heat. 

“I’m my own person in a world that tries to bend me to its will and expectations. And here you are,” her voice was low and hoarse, growing spiteful as it referred to him. “—here _you_ are, the very thing I refuse to become. A puppet," she said. "A _willing_ puppet.”

Szeth’s attention moved quickly to the solitary window. His pulse quickened instinctively. There was the sound of a busy street outside. He could lash down and scale it blindfolded. He could escape into the evening. Nightblood urged him to draw it, but he refused. No, not here.

Jasnah’s grip tightened around his elbow. She held on. 

“I try not to look at the past or to hold grudges. I try, and I fail,” she said. “Do you think… all is forgiven?”

Szeth flinched but said nothing.

She watched him and at his silence, her face slipped into a smile that she must reserve for private moments. A cold, brutal smile. 

“This is for my father who died by your hand.”

Szeth felt the change as she soulcasted. She soulcasted the very blood and flesh of his arm. From the fingertips to the point where she held. He watched in fascination and stupor. The wave of transformation.

Szeth didn't writhe. He could only stare at the change in colors, at the art and destruction of her skill, how the skin crusted over, how his flesh and bone turned into something else, and then caved and shattered from inside. Like a fruit left to brutalities of  frigid winters. The soulcasting split his left arm, decimating his limb and rendering an excruciating order of pain on his separated nerves, a pain that sent him reeling back. He watched his arm, seething in horror. He watched it disintegrate to dust, fingers, wrist, all, while his eyes welled with tears. Flesh to dust. Who'd have known it was so easy?

Szeth dropped to a corner, holding the stump of his left arm with the blood and bone of the joint exposed. It was a mess. The floor a glitter of shards. 

She hovered over him before reaching into her sleeve, retrieving something and dropping a gemstone into his lap.

Szeth flinched again and clamped his eyes shut as he drank in his own stormlight,  trying to assuage the shock in his nerves. His sword turned heavy on his back. He could sense its outrage, its own hunger rising.

“You may use it. In case you run out,” Jasnah said, her words carrying no mercy. Just pity. Szeth barely heard her next words. “I don’t need the stain of a Knight Radiant dying on my hands.”

 

 

* * *

 

 


End file.
